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June 2, 2011

Report: Matsuzaka Will Have Tommy John Surgery

Peter Abraham writes that, according to Nikkan Sports of Japan, Daisuke Matsuzaka will undergo season-ending surgery on the ulnar collateral ligament of his right elbow (aka Tommy John surgery).

Here is a rough translation of the Nikkon article, with some discussion. Matsuzaka may not have gone to Japan for family reasons, as was reported. He may have received several doses of platelet injection therapy, possibly without the Red Sox's knowledge or approval.

Recovery time from TJ surgery is between 12-18 months. If Matsuzaka has the operation soon (one report says he might have surgery next week), he could conceivably return to the Red Sox at the end of the 2012 season. It seems safer to assume his Boston career is over -- especially if he lied to the front office about the trip to Japan.

Yes, I am not saying I will miss DiceK on the staff. But how long can Wake hold down that slot in the rotation? Or Aceves? And losing all these games in a row does not make me feel like we are doing fine at this moment, though obviously some of these were pitched by our healthy regular starters.

Sounds like you need to scroll back through this blog and reacquaint yourself with how awesome this team has been, the historic turnaround it has made. (This might help.)

You also might want to check if there's ever been a team in baseball history with a completely healthy, stable pitching staff from April to October. Ok, slight exaggeration there! :) But who knows what our pitching staff will look like in the second half of the season.

We had a bad series against the White Sox, but 2 GB on June 2 is not a cause for concern.

Seriously, I am not at all worried about the team. But a tad worried about the pitching staff overall.

Right now I am actually more worried about my community at home where a series of tornadoes caused extensive damage last night and killed four people and injured many others. We are on the Cape, so I am trying to get updates online. Baseball is just a minor worry and a good distraction.

Thanks, Tim, for your concern. Fortunately we are away and safe, but our town still does not have any electricity so who knows what we have waiting for us. The tornado missed our town by inches, it seems, going from Springfield to Wilbraham---our town is right in between.

Laura - didn't the 2004 team pretty much get every start out of their opening rotation of Pedro, Schill, Wake, Arroyo and Lowe? There were a few spot starts here and there [I saw one, in a double header v the Orioles, with Wake going at night] but I think they pretty much all made all their starts. Just part of the ol' 2004 Magic!! And Amy, all the best to your friends and family.

James/Cartoons, if you say so! I'm assuming you looked it up - I'm not going to. :)

My point (exaggerated for effect, as I said) was just a long-term view that pitching issues are very common, and not necessarily a cause for worry - especially when it helps us get rid of a pitcher who has been a question mark at best.

I know the team had pitching woes in 2007, and that worked out pretty well.

Laura, I saw your point and I absolutely agree with you. I just remembered that 2004 was one of the very very few examples of that not being the case. I only looked it up after I posted, and was surprised to see Kim - I didn't remember that at all. I'd NEVEr have guessed him in a trivia quiz. And I agree too that losing Dice-K is not a disaster - he has been at times unbearable to watch pitching. And what's Oki saying?

Thanks, James. 2004 is the Great Exception that proves and disproves almost everything. :)

Re Kim, that's a perfect example of how inaccurate our memories are - all of us.

I always chuckle (or sometimes grit my teeth, depending) when announcers say, "I've never seen a season where there's been so many [whatever]." Rained out games, injured pitchers, blown umpiring calls, manager ejections - whatever it is, they are usually wrong! When they say it as a figure of speech, it's no big deal, but when they're actually trying to make a case for something, it's ridiculous.

Funny how in those haikus, any time someone uses "Daisuke," they consider it a three-syllable word. You'd think they'd know how to say Daisuke by now. Gee if only there were some Americanized term that helped us say the word Daisuke in English....

Disclaimer 1: Yes I know haiku is a very complicated thing and the syllables don't have to fit exactly and all that but I think it's assumed that as dumb Westerners we're going with 5-7-5.

Disclaimer 2: And yes I know that while "Dice-K" is two syllables, it probably doesn't represent the precise pronunciation and when you hear a Japanese person say "Daisuke" you might hear that quick "oo" between the Dice and the K, but, again, it's been established that Dice-K is the pronunciation we've all always used.

Post-disclaimer summary: Or maybe some people just never learned that Dice-K isn't a nickname but rather a phonetic spelling of Daisuke.

Relating to earlier comment: I was at the Abe Alvarez 2004 start in that O's doubleheader too! Here's what I wrote on my blog the next day: "Abe should be okay in a few years, he just needs to not walk everybody." Wrong!!!